CARS: the CFHTLS-Archive-Research Survey. I. Five-band multi-colour data from 37 sq. deg. CFHTLS-wid

By T. Erben, H. Hildebrandt, M. Lerchster, P. Hudelot, Jesse Benjamin, L. Waerbeke, T. Schrabback, F. Brimioulle, O. Cordes, J. Dietrich and 3 more. 2008

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Context. We present the CFHTLS-Archive-Research Survey (CARS). It is a virtual multi-colour survey that is based on public archive images from the Deep and Wide components of the CFHT-Legacy-Survey (CFHTLS). Our main scientific interests in the CFHTLS Wide-part of CARS are optical searches for galaxy clusters from low to high redshift and their subsequent study with photometric and weak-gravitational lensing techniques. Aims. As a first step in the CARS project, we present multi-colour catalogues from 37 sq. degrees of the CFHTLS-Wide component. Our aims are first to create astrometrically and photometrically well-calibrated co-added images from publicly available CFHTLS data. Second, we offer five-band ($u^*g'r'i'z'$) multi-band catalogues with an emphasis on reliable estimates for object colours. These are subsequently used for photometric redshift estimates. Methods. We consider all those CFHTLS-Wide survey pointings that were publicly available on January 2008 and that also have five-band coverage in $u^*g'r'i'z'$. The data were calibrated and processed with our GaBoDS/THELI image processing pipeline. The quality of the resulting images was thoroughly checked against the Sloan-Digital-Sky Survey (SDSS) and already public high-end CFHTLS data products. From the co-added images we extracted source catalogues and determined photometric redshifts using the public code Bayesian Photometric Redshifts (BPZ). Fifteen of our survey fields directly overlap with public spectra from the VIMOS VLT deep (VVDS), DEEP2 and SDSS redshift surveys, which we used for calibration and verification of our redshift estimates. Furthermore we applied a novel technique, based on studies of the angular galaxy cross-correlation function, to quantify the reliability of photo- z 's. Results. With this paper we present 37 sq. degrees of homogeneous and high-quality five-colour photometric data from the CFHTLS-Wide survey. The median seeing of our data is better than $0\farcs 9$ in all bands and our catalogues reach a $5\sigma$ limiting magnitude of about $i'_{\rm AB}\approx$ 24.5. Comparisons with the SDSS indicate that most of our survey fields are photometrically calibrated to an accuracy of 0.04 mag or better. This allows us to derive photometric redshifts of homogeneous quality over the whole survey area. The accuracy of our high-confidence photo- z sample (10-15 galaxies per sq. arcmin) is estimated with external spectroscopic data to $\sigma_{\Delta_z/(1+z)}\approx$ 0.04-0.05 up to $i'_{\rm AB}$ < 24 with typically only 1-3% outliers. In the spirit of the Legacy Survey we make our catalogues available to the astronomical community. Our products consist of multi-colour catalogues and supplementary information, such as image masks and JPEG files to visually inspect our catalogues. Interested users can obtain the data by request to the authors.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a8f55845ac2b236858d76411bce8301ab8e7b031

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Citations in the corpus

Lensing is Low: Cosmology, Galaxy Formation, or New Physics? (2016, methodology): “The limiting magnitude of the survey is i ∼ 24.1.6 Image processing is largely based on the procedures presented in Erben et al. (2009) and shear catalogues were constructed using the same weak-lensing pipeline developed by the CFHTLenS collaboration using the lensfit Bayesian shape measurement…”
CFHTLenS: the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey – imaging data and catalogue products (2012, methodology): “2.2 Data Reduction with THELI The CFHTLenS data analysis pipeline starts with the public THELI data reduction pipeline designed to produce lensing quality data (Erben et al. 2005) and first applied to the CFHTLS in Erben et al. (2009).”
THE NEWFIRM MEDIUM-BAND SURVEY: PHOTOMETRIC CATALOGS, REDSHIFTS, AND THE BIMODAL COLOR DISTRIBUTION OF GALAXIES OUT TO z ∼ 3 (2011, methodology): “…broadband images of both survey fields from the Deep Canada-France-Haweaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS)17, using image versions reduced by the CARS team (Erben et al. 2009; Hildebrandt et al. 2009), and JHKS broadband imaging from the WIRCam Deep Survey (WIRDS; Bielby et al.,in preparation).”
PRIMUS: CONSTRAINTS ON STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND GALAXY MERGING, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR MASS FUNCTION FROM z = 0–1 (2013, methodology): “…and XMM-CFHTLS fields we rely on the high-fidelity u∗g′r′i′z′ photometric catalogs generated as part of the CFHTLS Archive Research Survey (CARS; Erben et al. 2009).24 These catalogs are based on deep imaging obtained as part of the CFHTLS-Wide survey using the CFHT/Megacam camera (Boulade…”
The first and second data releases of the Kilo-Degree Survey (2015, background): “21 we show the angular cross-correlations w(θ) of the positions of galaxies in different photometric redshift bins, on scales between 1 and 30 arcmin (Erben et al. 2009; Benjamin et al. 2010).”
Gravitational lensing analysis of the Kilo-Degree Survey (2015, methodology): “The AUTOMASK algorithms and procedures are described in more detail in Erben et al. (2009).”
3D-HST WFC3-SELECTED PHOTOMETRIC CATALOGS IN THE FIVE CANDELS/3D-HST FIELDS: PHOTOMETRY, PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS, AND STELLAR MASSES (2014, methodology): “In the optical we use ugriz Deep Canada–France– Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) broadband images from the CARS team (Erben et al. 2009; Hildebrandt et al. 2009) and our own reduction of the HST/ACS F606W and F814W images from the CANDELS survey.”
The Kilo-Degree Survey (2012, methodology): “The synergy with the different techniques and approaches used within the team, including independent data processing routes (e.g. THELI [9] and VSTtube [11] will allow for constant cross-checking and improvements.”
KiDS-450: The tomographic weak lensing power spectrum and constraints on cosmological parameters (2017, methodology): “The galaxy shapes are measured from the THELI-processed data with the shape measurement software lensfit (Miller et al. 2013; Fenech Conti et al. 2017).”
Weighing the Giants - I. Weak-lensing masses for 51 massive galaxy clusters: project overview, data analysis methods and cluster images (2012, methodology): “For photometry, these images are convolved to a common PSF size using a Gaussian kernel (see Erben et al. 2009, for details).”
CFHTLenS: combined probe cosmological model comparison using 2D weak gravitational lensing (2012, methodology): “(i) The CFHTLS data have been reanalysed with a new pipeline (Erben et al. 2009, 2013).”
KiDS-450: cosmological parameter constraints from tomographic weak gravitational lensing (2016, methodology): “The handling of the KiDS data with this pipeline evolved from the CARS (Erben et al. 2009) and CFHTLenS (Erben et al. 2013) projects, and is described in more detail in Kuijken et al. (2015); the key difference from the multicolour data reduction described in Section 2.2 is the preservation of the i”
THE NUMBER DENSITY AND MASS DENSITY OF STAR-FORMING AND QUIESCENT GALAXIES AT 0.4 ⩽ z ⩽ 2.2 (2011, methodology): “The NEWFIRM J123, H12, andK data are supplemented at optimal wavelengths by deepugriz imaging in both fields from the CFHT Legacy Survey12, as reduced by the CARS team 11 http://aegis.ucolick.org/ 12 http://cfht.hawaii.edu/Science/CFHTLS (Erben et al. 2009; Hildebrandt et al. 2009).”
GALAXY CLUSTERING IN THE NEWFIRM MEDIUM BAND SURVEY: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STELLAR MASS AND DARK MATTER HALO MASS AT 1 < z < 2 (2010, methodology): “The reduced CFHT mosaics were kindly provided to us by the CARS team (Erben et al. 2009; Hildebrandt et al. 2009).”
THE NEXT GENERATION VIRGO CLUSTER SURVEY (NGVS). I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEY (2012, methodology): “…to optimize S/N for color and shape measurements of small and faint background galaxies for lensing and photometric redshift studies, are produced at the University of British Columbia using the THELI40 pipeline (Erben et al. 2005, 2009), and will be described in a separate paper of this series.”
CARS: the CFHTLS-Archive-Research Survey - II. Weighing dark matter halos of Lyman-break galaxies at z = 3–5 (2009, methodology): “In Erben et al. (2009) we relied on the average removal of extinction effects by means of zeropoint (ZP) recalibration on fields with spectroscopic coverage.”
Weighing the Giants – III. Methods and measurements of accurate galaxy cluster weak-lensing masses (2012, methodology): “Raw CCD exposures were processed using a modified GaBoDS/Theli pipeline (Erben et al. 2005, 2009; Schirmer 2013).”
CFHTLenS: testing the laws of gravity with tomographic weak lensing and redshift-space distortions (2012, methodology): “The CFHTLenS analysis represents the current state-of-the-art in weak lensing data processing (Erben et al. 2009), weak lensing measurement (Miller et al. 2012), photometric redshift measurement (Hildebrandt et al. 2012), and systematic error analysis (Heymans et al. 2012).”
CFHTLenS: Improving the quality of photometric redshifts with precision photometry (2011, methodology): “The procedure is identical to the one presented in Erben et al. (2009) involving six SExtractor runs.”
THE PRISM MULTI-OBJECT SURVEY (PRIMUS). I. SURVEY OVERVIEW AND CHARACTERISTICS (2010, methodology): “To correct for these offsets, in the CDFS-SWIRE field we applied the recommended zeropoint corrections from Rowan-Robinson et al. (2008), in COSMOS we applied the offsets derived by Ilbert et al. (2009), and in our XMM-LSS field we used the Erben et al. (2009) recommended offsets.”